Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1884 — My First Antelope. [ARTICLE]

My First Antelope.

We scurried over the desert plains south of Laramie, Wyoming, skirted Sheep Mountain, entered North Park, and after a fifty-five mile drive, camped at Pinkham’s Ranch, All day long we had kept up a fusillade at antelope in the distance but without effect. At daybreak I swung my Sharps carbine over my shoulder, mounted my horse, and started for a group of antelojm a mile or more away. When within a thousand yards I dismounted, and for three hundred yards crawled cautiously through the long grass. They appeared to be a buck and two does. Reclining at full length, and, taking long and deliberate aim at the larger of the three, I was highly elated to see the supposed buck spring in the air and fall to the ground. Returning, and remounting my horse, I rode rapidly toward the wounded animal, elated at the prize I should be able to show my comrades at Pinkham’s when they rose for breakfast. Judge of my chagrin and remorse when, upon drawing near to the dying animal, I discovered that I had shot a doe. Instead of scampering rapidly away, as they naturally would have done, the favfes remained close to their mother in her death straggles. With their beautiful gazelle eyes they cast such piteous reproving looks at me, as one could never forget; it was a scene to move a heart of stone. For days afterward on driving from point to point in North Park, we encountered large droves of these antelopeß. Frequently they remained, just like so many calves in the barn-yard, until we had* ridden fairly on to them. But I could never persuade myself to kill another of these beautiful animals except as needed for food. Sportsmen who delight in shooting the graceful creatures one after another, are nothing less than inhuman butchers.— David W. Judd, in American Agriculturist.